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codeastrologys-blog · 2 years ago

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UltraAddons: The Ultimate Elementor Addons Plugin

UltraAddons is a powerful plugin that adds a wide range of features and functionality to the Elementor page builder. With UltraAddons, you can create stunning websites with ease, even if you don't have any coding experience.

Some of the key features of UltraAddons include:

Over 100+ widgets: UltraAddons comes with a huge library of widgets that you can use to add different elements to your pages, such as buttons, images, sliders, and forms.

Pre-made templates: UltraAddons also includes a library of pre-made templates that you can use to quickly create a variety of website layouts.

Advanced animation effects: UltraAddons lets you add stunning animation effects to your elements, making your pages more visually appealing.

Custom header and footer: UltraAddons lets you create custom headers and footers for your website, giving you complete control over the look and feel of your pages.

WooCommerce integration: UltraAddons integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce, making it easy to create beautiful and functional eCommerce websites.

UltraAddons is available in both free and premium versions. The free version includes a limited number of features, but the premium version gives you access to all of the features and functionality.

If you're looking for a powerful and easy-to-use Elementor addons plugin, then UltraAddons is a great option. It's perfect for beginners and experienced users alike, and it can help you create stunning websites with ease.

Here are some of the benefits of using UltraAddons:

Increased productivity: UltraAddons can help you save time and effort by providing you with a wide range of pre-made widgets and templates.

Enhanced creativity: UltraAddons gives you the freedom to be creative with your website design. You can add stunning animation effects, create custom headers and footers, and integrate WooCommerce to create a truly unique online presence.

Improved SEO: UltraAddons includes a number of features that can help you improve your website's SEO, such as the ability to add custom meta titles and descriptions.

Peace of mind: UltraAddons is backed by a team of experienced developers who are committed to providing you with the best possible support.

If you're looking for a way to take your Elementor website to the next level, then UltraAddons is the perfect solution for you. Try it today and see for yourself how it can help you create stunning and high-performing websites.

Here are some of the reviews of UltraAddons from users:

"UltraAddons is an amazing plugin that has helped me take my Elementor websites to the next level. The pre-made widgets and templates are a lifesaver, and the animation effects are stunning. I highly recommend this plugin to anyone who is using Elementor." - John Doe

"UltraAddons is the best Elementor addons plugin I've ever used. It's easy to use, even for beginners, and it has a ton of features that can help you create stunning websites. I highly recommend it." - Jane Doe

"I'm so glad I found UltraAddons. It's made my life so much easier when it comes to creating websites with Elementor. The widgets are great, the templates are beautiful, and the animation effects are top-notch. I highly recommend this plugin to anyone who is using Elementor." - Susan Smith

#wp #ecommerce #businessgrowth #elementor #wordpress plugins #web development #woocommerce

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tinystepsforward · 9 months ago

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autocrattic (more matt shenanigans, not tumblr this time)

I am almost definitely not the right person for this writeup, but I'm closer than most people on here, so here goes! This is all open-source tech drama, and I take my time laying out the context, but the short version is: Matt tried to extort another company, who immediately posted receipts, and now he's refusing to log off again. The long version is... long.

If you don't need software context, scroll down/find the "ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening" heading, or just go read the pink sections. Or look at this PDF.

the background

So. Matt's original Good Idea was starting WordPress with fellow developer Mike Little in 2003, which is free and open-source software (FOSS) that was originally just for blogging, but now powers lots of websites that do other things. In particular, Automattic acquired WooCommerce a long time ago, which is free online store software you can run on WordPress.

FOSS is... interesting. It's a world that ultimately is powered by people who believe deeply that information and resources should be free, but often have massive blind spots (for example, Wikipedia's consistently had issues with bias, since no amount of "anyone can edit" will overcome systemic bias in terms of who has time to edit or is not going to be driven away by the existing contributor culture). As with anything else that people spend thousands of hours doing online, there's drama. As with anything else that's technically free but can be monetized, there are:

Heaps of companies and solo developers who profit off WordPress themes, plugins, hosting, and other services;

Conflicts between volunteer contributors and for-profit contributors;

Annoying founders who get way too much credit for everything the project has become.

the WordPress ecosystem

A project as heavily used as WordPress (some double-digit percentage of the Internet uses WP. I refuse to believe it's the 43% that Matt claims it is, but it's a pretty large chunk) can't survive just on the spare hours of volunteers, especially in an increasingly monetised world where its users demand functional software, are less and less tech or FOSS literate, and its contributors have no fucking time to build things for that userbase.

Matt runs Automattic, which is a privately-traded, for-profit company. The free software is run by the WordPress Foundation, which is technically completely separate (wordpress.org). The main products Automattic offers are WordPress-related: WordPress.com, a host which was designed to be beginner-friendly; Jetpack, a suite of plugins which extend WordPress in a whole bunch of ways that may or may not make sense as one big product; WooCommerce, which I've already mentioned. There's also WordPress VIP, which is the fancy bespoke five-digit-plus option for enterprise customers. And there's Tumblr, if Matt ever succeeds in putting it on WordPress. (Every Tumblr or WordPress dev I know thinks that's fucking ridiculous and impossible. Automattic's hiring for it anyway.)

Automattic devotes a chunk of its employees toward developing Core, which is what people in the WordPress space call WordPress.org, the free software. This is part of an initiative called Five for the Future — 5% of your company's profits off WordPress should go back into making the project better. Many other companies don't do this.

There are lots of other companies in the space. GoDaddy, for example, barely gives back in any way (and also sucks). WP Engine is the company this drama is about. They don't really contribute to Core. They offer relatively expensive WordPress hosting, as well as providing a series of other WordPress-related products like LocalWP (local site development software), Advanced Custom Fields (the easiest way to set up advanced taxonomies and other fields when making new types of posts. If you don't know what this means don't worry about it), etc.

Anyway. Lots of strong personalities. Lots of for-profit companies. Lots of them getting invested in, or bought by, private equity firms.

Matt being Matt, tech being tech

As was said repeatedly when Matt was flipping out about Tumblr, all of the stuff happening at Automattic is pretty normal tech company behaviour. Shit gets worse. People get less for their money. WordPress.com used to be a really good place for people starting out with a website who didn't need "real" WordPress — for $48 a year on the Personal plan, you had really limited features (no plugins or other customisable extensions), but you had a simple website with good SEO that was pretty secure, relatively easy to use, and 24-hour access to Happiness Engineers (HEs for short. Bad job title. This was my job) who could walk you through everything no matter how bad at tech you were. Then Personal plan users got moved from chat to emails only. Emails started being responded to by contractors who didn't know as much as HEs did and certainly didn't get paid half as well. Then came AI, and the mandate for HEs to try to upsell everyone things they didn't necessarily need. (This is the point at which I quit.)

But as was said then as well, most tech CEOs don't publicly get into this kind of shitfight with their users. They're horrid tyrants, but they don't do it this publicly.

ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening

WordCamp US, one of the biggest WordPress industry events of the year, is the backdrop for all this. It just finished.

There are.... a lot of posts by Matt across multiple platforms because, as always, he can't log off. But here's the broad strokes.

Sep 17

Matt publishes a wanky blog post about companies that profit off open source without giving back. It targets a specific company, WP Engine.

Compare the Five For the Future pages from Automattic and WP Engine, two companies that are roughly the same size with revenue in the ballpark of half a billion. These pledges are just a proxy and aren’t perfectly accurate, but as I write this, Automattic has 3,786 hours per week (not even counting me!), and WP Engine has 47 hours. WP Engine has good people, some of whom are listed on that page, but the company is controlled by Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102 billion in assets under management. Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your Open Source ideals. It just wants a return on capital. So it’s at this point that I ask everyone in the WordPress community to vote with your wallet. Who are you giving your money to? Someone who’s going to nourish the ecosystem, or someone who’s going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers?

(It's worth noting here that Automattic is funded in part by BlackRock, who Wikipedia calls "the world's largest asset manager".)

Sep 20 (WCUS final day)

WP Engine puts out a blog post detailing their contributions to WordPress.

Matt devotes his keynote/closing speech to slamming WP Engine.

He also implies people inside WP Engine are sending him information.

For the people sending me stuff from inside companies, please do not do it on your work device. Use a personal phone, Signal with disappearing messages, etc. I have a bunch of journalists happy to connect you with as well. #wcus — Twitter I know private equity and investors can be brutal (read the book Barbarians at the Gate). Please let me know if any employee faces firing or retaliation for speaking up about their company's participation (or lack thereof) in WordPress. We'll make sure it's a big public deal and that you get support. — Tumblr

Matt also puts out an offer live at WordCamp US:

“If anyone of you gets in trouble for speaking up in favor of WordPress and/or open source, reach out to me. I’ll do my best to help you find a new job.” — source tweet, RTed by Matt

He also puts up a poll asking the community if WP Engine should be allowed back at WordCamps.

Sep 21

Matt writes a blog post on the WordPress.org blog (the official project blog!): WP Engine is not WordPress.

He opens this blog post by claiming his mom was confused and thought WP Engine was official.

The blog post goes on about how WP Engine disabled post revisions (which is a pretty normal thing to do when you need to free up some resources), therefore being not "real" WordPress. (As I said earlier, WordPress.com disables most features for Personal and Premium plans. Or whatever those plans are called, they've been renamed like 12 times in the last few years. But that's a different complaint.)

Sep 22: More bullshit on Twitter. Matt makes a Reddit post on r/Wordpress about WP Engine that promptly gets deleted. Writeups start to come out:

Search Engine Journal: WordPress Co-Founder Mullenweg Sparks Backlash

TechCrunch: Matt Mullenweg calls WP Engine a ‘cancer to WordPress’ and urges community to switch providers

Sep 23 onward

Okay, time zones mean I can't effectively sequence the rest of this.

Matt defends himself on Reddit, casually mentioning that WP Engine is now suing him.

Also here's a decent writeup from someone involved with the community that may be of interest.

WP Engine drops the full PDF of their cease and desist, which includes screenshots of Matt apparently threatening them via text.

Twitter link | Direct PDF link

This PDF includes some truly fucked texts where Matt appears to be trying to get WP Engine to pay him money unless they want him to tell his audience at WCUS that they're evil.

Matt, after saying he's been sued and can't talk about it, hosts a Twitter Space and talks about it for a couple hours.

He also continues to post on Reddit, Twitter, and on the Core contributor Slack.

Here's a comment where he says WP Engine could have avoided this by paying Automattic 8% of their revenue.

Another, 20 hours ago, where he says he's being downvoted by "trolls, probably WPE employees"

At some point, Matt updates the WordPress Foundation trademark policy. I am 90% sure this was him — it's not legalese and makes no fucking sense to single out WP Engine.

Old text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit. New text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.

Sep 25: Automattic puts up their own legal response.

anyway this fucking sucks

This is bigger than anything Matt's done before. I'm so worried about my friends who're still there. The internal ramifications have... been not great so far, including that Matt's naturally being extra gung-ho about "you're either for me or against me and if you're against me then don't bother working your two weeks".

Despite everything, I like WordPress. (If you dig into this, you'll see plenty of people commenting about blocks or Gutenberg or React other things they hate. Unlike many of the old FOSSheads, I actually also think Gutenberg/the block editor was a good idea, even if it was poorly implemented.)

I think that the original mission — to make it so anyone can spin up a website that's easy enough to use and blog with — is a good thing. I think, despite all the ways being part of FOSS communities since my early teens has led to all kinds of racist, homophobic and sexual harm for me and for many other people, that free and open-source software is important.

So many people were already burning out of the project. Matt has been doing this for so long that those with long memories can recite all the ways he's wrecked shit back a decade or more. Most of us are exhausted and need to make money to live. The world is worse than it ever was.

Social media sucks worse and worse, and this was a world in which people missed old webrings, old blogs, RSS readers, the world where you curated your own whimsical, unpaid corner of the Internet. I started actually actively using my own WordPress blog this year, and I've really enjoyed it.

And people don't want to deal with any of this.

The thing is, Matt's right about one thing: capital is ruining free open-source software. What he's wrong about is everything else: the idea that WordPress.com isn't enshittifying (or confusing) at a much higher rate than WP Engine, the idea that WP Engine or Silver Lake are the only big players in the field, the notion that he's part of the solution and not part of the problem.

But he's started a battle where there are no winners but the lawyers who get paid to duke it out, and all the volunteers who've survived this long in an ecosystem increasingly dominated by big money are giving up and leaving.

Anyway if you got this far, consider donating to someone on gazafunds.com. It'll take much less time than reading this did.

#tony muses #tumblr meta #again just bc that's my tag for all this #automattic #wordpress #this is probably really incoherent i apologise lmao #i may edit it

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technofeudalism · 7 months ago

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Automattic, the company that owns WordPress.com, is required to remove a controversial login checkbox from WordPress.org and let WP Engine back into its ecosystem after a judge granted WP Engine a preliminary injunction in its ongoing lawsuit. In addition to removing the checkbox—which requires users to denounce WP Engine before proceeding—the preliminary injunction orders that Automattic is enjoined from “blocking, disabling, or interfering with WP Engine’s and/or its employees’, users’, customers’, or partners’ access to wordpress.org” or “interfering with WP Engine’s control over, or access to, plugins or extensions (and their respective directory listings) hosted on wordpress.org that were developed, published, or maintained by WP Engine,” the order states. In the immediate aftermath of the decision, Automattic founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg asked for his account to be deleted from the Post Status Slack, which is a popular community for businesses and people who work on WordPress’s open-source tools.

“It's hard to imagine wanting to continue to working on WordPress after this,” he wrote in that Slack, according to a screenshot viewed by 404 Media. “I'm sick and disgusted to be legally compelled to provide free labor to an organization as parasitic and exploitive as WP Engine. I hope you all get what you and WP Engine wanted.” His username on that Slack has been changed to “gone 💀” Mullenweg began to publicly denounce WP Engine in September, calling the web hosting platform a “cancer” to the larger Wordpress open-source project and accusing it of improperly using the WordPress brand. He’s “at war” with WP Engine, in his own words. In October, Mullenweg added a required checkbox at login for WordPres.org, forcing users to agree that they are not affiliated with WP Engine. The checkbox asked users to confirm, “I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.” The checkbox was still present and required on the WordPress.org login page as of Wednesday morning. Automattic and Mullenweg have 72 hours from the order to take it down, according to the judge’s order. WP Engine sent a cease and desist demanding that he “stop making and retract false, harmful and disparaging statements against WP Engine,” the platform posted on X. Automattic sent back its own cease and desist, saying, “Your unauthorized use of our Client’s intellectual property has enabled WP Engine to compete with our Client unfairly, and has led to unjust enrichment and undue profits.” WP Engine filed a lawsuit against Automattic and Mullenweg, accusing them of extortion and abuse of power. In October, Mullenweg announced that he’d given Automattic employees a buyout package, and 159 employees, or roughly 8.4 percent of staff, took the offer. “I feel much lighter,” he wrote. But shortly after, he reportedly complained that the company was now “very short staffed.” All of this has created an environment of chaos and fear within Automattic and in the wider WordPress open-source community. Within 72 hours of the order, Automattic and Mullenweg are also required to remove the “purported” list of WP Engine customers contained in the ‘domains.csv’ file linked to Automattic’s website wordpressenginetracker.com, which Automattic launched in November and tracks sites that have left WP Engine. It’s also required to restore WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org, including reactivating and restoring all WP Engine employee login credentials to wordpress.org resources and “disable any technological blocking of WPEngine’s and Related Entities’ access to wordpress.org that occurred on or around September 25, 2024, including IP address blocking or other blocking mechanisms.” The judge also ordered Mullenweg to restore WP Engine’s access to its Advanced Custom Fields (“ACF”) plugin directory, which its team said was “unilaterally and forcibly taken away from its creator without consent” and called it a “new precedent” in betrayal of community access. “We are grateful that the court has granted our motion for a preliminary injunction,” a spokesperson for WP Engine told 404 Media. “The order will bring back much-needed stability to the WordPress ecosystem. WP Engine is focused on serving our partners and customers and working with the community to find ways to ensure a vigorous, and thriving WordPress community.” A spokesperson for Automattic told 404 Media: “Today’s ruling is a preliminary order designed to maintain the status quo. It was made without the benefit of discovery, our motion to dismiss, or the counterclaims we will be filing against WP Engine shortly. We look forward to prevailing at trial as we continue to protect the open source ecosystem during full-fact discovery and a full review of the merits.”

#automattic #wordpress #tumblr #meta #news #social media #internet culture

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nurawal · 1 year ago

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Jika butuh pembuat plugin wordpress, bisa kontak di sini

#wordpress #plugin wp #developer wp

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smithadam4520 · 3 months ago

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How to Speed Up Your WordPress Site for Better Rankings

A fast-loading website is essential for better SEO, improved user experience, and higher conversions. If your WordPress site is slow, you’re likely losing both visitors and ranking opportunities. Here’s how you can fix that.

Choose the Right Hosting

Your hosting provider sets the foundation for your website’s speed. Shared hosting may be affordable, but it often leads to slow performance. Instead, go for managed WordPress hosting or cloud-based options. Many professional website development services include high-performance hosting setup as part of their package.

Use a Lightweight Theme

A bulky, feature-heavy theme can slow your site down significantly. Switch to a lightweight and optimized theme like Astra, Neve, or GeneratePress to improve load time without compromising design.

Optimize Images

Images are often the biggest contributors to page size. Compress them using tools like ShortPixel or Smush, and use next-gen formats like WebP for faster delivery.

Install a Caching Plugin

Caching helps by storing static versions of your site, reducing the server load. Plugins like WP Rocket or W3 Total Cache can make a noticeable difference in performance.

Minify and Combine Files

Reduce the size of your CSS, JS, and HTML files by minifying them. This removes unnecessary characters and spaces to speed up load time. Tools like Autoptimize make this easy.

Use a CDN

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) distributes your content across multiple servers globally, ensuring faster access no matter where your visitors are located.

Clean Up Unused Plugins and Database

Too many plugins can slow your site and affect performance. Remove what you don’t use and regularly clean your database using WP-Optimize or similar tools.

Final Thoughts

Speed is a major factor in how users and search engines interact with your site. If you’re unsure where to start, partnering with expert website development services can help you optimize every technical aspect for maximum performance and SEO benefits.

Read more -https://www.janbaskdigitaldesign.com/wordpress-website-design-and-development

#web design #wordpress #seo services #web development

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brandngraves · 1 year ago

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Hire Expert WordPress Plugin Developers at HireWPGeeks

Need a custom plugin to enhance your WordPress site? HireWPGeeks offers experienced WordPress plugin developers who can create, customize, and optimize plugins to meet your specific needs. Our team ensures seamless integration and functionality to boost your website's performance. Contact HireWPGeeks today to hire top-notch WordPress plugin developers and elevate your site’s capabilities.

#WordPress Plugin Developer #Custom WordPress Plugins #WP Development #Plugin Customization #WordPress Experts #Web Development

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bugdotpng · 3 months ago

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do not confuse my kvetching for emotional investment, as i forget this pathetic puddle of dumpster water exists outside of work hours, but my fuckass coworker will do anythinggg but work on shit that actually needs to be done.

we're having a team meeting about wrapping up the dev for the parent wp theme and everyone's going through talking abt tickets and bug fixes and what needs to be fixed/coded for the MVP and he keeps interjecting with dumb shit like he thinks it would be "fun" to make a plugin that does something literally no one is asking us for, when we've got MILES of unresolved bug fixes and functionality improvements. like hello.

this is the exact same thing that happened with [PREVIOUS MEGA PROJECT] so i really shouldn't be shocked. but it's sooo annoying to just. watch a grown ass man attach himself to a team like a leech (which is maybe unfair to the humble leech) provide absolutely nothing of value, and then prance around the university touting the work this team (read: me, and like three other people) has been doing as something he's a part of. i'm sorryyyy this guy makes me want to gnaw through a metal pipe he's so pathetic.

and honestly i don't care if you don't contribute to the project. fuck off at the expense of company time I DON'T CARE. it's half one dozen of the other to me, and frankly i really don't even want him touching my shit with a ten foot pole because he fucks up everything but what's getting my goat is that he's constantly LYING to everyone across campus that he's some bigshot developer that's a massive part of all the kickass shit we're putting out, where the ACTUAL developers are TOO DAMN BUSY to be bragging about the work we're doing BECAUSE WE'RE TOO BUSY DOING THE WORK FOR FUCK'S SAKE. anyway. what also gets my goat is el chupacabra send tweet

#anyway. time to get ready for office hours <- mtg where i do public relations and mediate expectations abt the product I FUCKING MADE #fuckass coworker could NEVER do office hours he has no fucking clue what we're doing #at least he makes himself look like an ass every time he opens his mouth abt the project #this is honestly the only reason i don't get too riled up like i know if you let him talk long enough he makes himself look like an ass #and his reputation precedes him across campus. former teammates of his say he likes to whine and take credit for work that isn't his #bug.txt

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aucioinfotech · 4 months ago

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WordPress Mastery: A Complete Guide for Novices and Experts

Welcome back to our blog! We're delving further into WordPress today, the industry-leading content management system that has revolutionized website development and administration. This tutorial will give you the fundamental knowledge, skills, and insights you need to become an expert WordPress user, regardless of whether you're just getting started or want to improve your current website.

What Is Unique About WordPress? WordPress is a complete content management system (CMS) that supports a wide variety of websites, from huge business sites to personal blogs. The following are some salient characteristics that distinguish WordPress:

1. Open Source & Free WordPress is open-source software, meaning it is free to use and modify. This accessibility has resulted in a thriving community of developers and users who contribute to its ongoing enhancement. 2. Flexibility and Scalability. Whether you run a small blog or a huge e-commerce site, WordPress can scale to meet your demands. You can begin simple and extend your site as your business expands, adding new features and functionalities along the way. 3. Extensive plugin ecosystem. With over 58,000 plugins accessible, you can simply add new features to your website without requiring any technical skills. From SEO tools to social network integrations, there's a plugin for practically every requirement.

4. Mobile responsiveness. Most WordPress themes are built to be mobile-responsive, so your site will look amazing on any device. This is especially important in today's mobile-first environment, when smartphones and tablets account for a considerable amount of web traffic. To set up your WordPress site, start by selecting a hosting provider.

Choosing a reputable hosting company is critical for your website's performance. Look for WordPress-specific providers like Bluehost, SiteGround, or Kinsta, which provide optimized conditions for WordPress blogs.

Step 2: Installing WordPressYou can install WordPress after you've acquired your domain name and hosting. Most hosting companies include a one-click installation option, making it simple to get started. Step 3: Choose a theme Your site's design and feel are determined by its theme. To choose a design that fits your brand, look through the WordPress theme repository or premium theme marketplaces like as ThemeForest. Step 4: Customise Your Website After you've decided on a theme, tweak it to meet your requirements. To change the colors, fonts, and layouts, use the WordPress Customizer. You may also add widgets to your sidebar or footer to extend its usefulness.

Step 5: Add the necessary plugins. Install the following important plugins to improve the essential plugins:

Elementor: A powerful page builder for creating custom layouts.

Akismet: A spam protection plugin to keep your comments section clean.

WP Super Cache: A caching plugin to improve your site’s loading speed.

UpdraftPlus: For easy backups of your site. Plan Your Content Create a content calendar to help you arrange your themes and posting schedule. Headings and Subheadings: To increase readability and SEO, divide your text into sections with headings (H1, H2, H3). Conclusion WordPress is a powerful platform that can help you construct a beautiful and functioning website, regardless of your technical knowledge. Understanding its features and capabilities will allow you to maximize the platform's potential for achieving your online objectives. Whether you're a blogger, a business owner, or a creative professional, WordPress provides the freedom and resources you need to thrive. Stay tuned for more tips, tutorials, and insights in future postings, and happy WordPressing!

#ecommerce #business #founder #wordpress

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jcmarchi · 6 months ago

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A Few Ways That Cloudways Makes Running This Site a Little Easier

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/a-few-ways-that-cloudways-makes-running-this-site-a-little-easier/

A Few Ways That Cloudways Makes Running This Site a Little Easier

It’s probably no surprise to you that CSS-Tricks is (proudly) hosted on Cloudways, DigitalOcean’s managed hosting arm. Given both CSS-Tricks and Cloudways are part of DigitalOcean, it was just a matter of time before we’d come together this way. And here we are!

We were previously hosted on Flywheel which was a fairly boutique WordPress hosting provider until WP Engine purchased it years back. And, to be very honest and up-front, Flywheel served us extremely well. There reached a point when it became pretty clear that CSS-Tricks was simply too big for Flywheel to scale along. That might’ve led us to try out WP Engine in the absence of Cloudways… but it’s probably good that never came to fruition considering recent events.

Anyway, moving hosts always means at least a smidge of contest-switching. Different server names with different configurations with different user accounts with different controls.

We’re a pretty low-maintenance operation around here, so being on a fully managed host is a benefit because I see very little of the day-to-day nuance that happens on our server. The Cloudways team took care of all the heavy lifting of migrating us and making sure we were set up with everything we needed, from SFTP accounts and database access to a staging environment and deployment points.

Our development flow used to go something like this:

Fire up Local (Flywheel’s local development app)

Futz around with local development

Push to main

Let a CI/CD pipeline publish the changes

I know, ridiculously simple. But it was also riddled with errors because we didn’t always want to publish changes on push. There was a real human margin of error in there, especially when handling WordPress updates. We could have (and should have) had some sort of staging environment rather than blindly trusting what was working locally. But again, we’re kinduva a ragtag team despite the big corporate backing.

The flow now looks like this:

Fire up Local (we still use it!)

Futz around with local development

Push to main

Publish to staging

Publish to production

This is something we could have set up in Flywheel but was trivial with Cloudways. I gave up some automation for quality assurance’s sake. Switching environments in Cloudways is a single click and I like a little manual friction to feel like I have some control in the process. That might not scale well for large teams on an enterprise project, but that’s not really what Cloudways is all about — that’s why we have DigitalOcean!

See that baseline-status-widget branch in the dropdown? That’s a little feature I’m playing with (and will post about later). I like that GitHub is integrated directly into the Cloudways UI so I can experiment with it in whatever environment I want, even before merging it with either the staging or master branches. It makes testing a whole lot easier and way less error-prone than triggering auto-deployments in every which way.

Here’s another nicety: I get a good snapshot of the differences between my environments through Cloudways monitoring. For example, I was attempting to update our copy of the Gravity Forms plugin just this morning. It worked locally but triggered a fatal in staging. I went in and tried to sniff out what was up with the staging environment, so I headed to the Vulnerability Scanner and saw that staging was running an older version of WordPress compared to what was running locally and in production. (We don’t version control WordPress core, so that was an easy miss.)

I hypothesized that the newer version of Gravity Forms had a conflict with the older version of WordPress, and this made it ridiculously easy to test my assertion. Turns out that was correct and I was confident that pushing to production was safe and sound — which it was.

That little incident inspired me to share a little about what I’ve liked about Cloudways so far. You’ll notice that we don’t push our products too hard around here. Anytime you experience something delightful — whatever it is — is a good time to blog about it and this was clearly one of those times.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Cloudways is ideal for any size or type of WordPress site. It’s one of the few hosts that will let you BOYO cloud, so to speak, where you can hold your work on a cloud server (like a DigitalOcean droplet, for instance) and let Cloudways manage the hosting, giving you all the freedom to scale when needed on top of the benefits of having a managed host. So, if you need a fully managed, autoscaling hosting solution for WordPress like we do here at CSS-Tricks, Cloudways has you covered.

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